


I Want to Write You a Song

by Likedeadends



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pining, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26888176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likedeadends/pseuds/Likedeadends
Summary: The Johnny Suh has a crush on Taeil.
Relationships: Moon Taeil/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 13
Kudos: 47





	I Want to Write You a Song

Track 1: I Want to Know Your Plans - Say Anything 

Taeil knows Johnny has a crush on him. The knowledge comes to him in pieces, from coffees waiting at his desk during their 8am lectures, to spots saved on the quiet floor at the library in the middle of finals week. 

Johnny is not as subtle as he thinks he is. 

Taeil can see the differences in Johnny With His Friends and Johnny With Taeil. Sometimes it’s just a couple degrees off from normal and sometimes it’s a sticky kind of sweet, ice cream melting under summer sun. His smile soft, eyes glittering, and hanging on every word Taeil says. 

Taeil doesn’t exactly mind. It’s nice to be doted on. Nicer when it’s someone as unarguably sexy as Johnny is. It’s just that Taeil doesn’t date. As nice as Johnny is, as syrupy as his texts get when he’s been drinking, and as funny as their notes passed back and forth in class are, Taeil isn’t really interested. He just doesn’t know how to get that across without ruining their relationship. 

\--

Track 2: La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf

“You should probably tell him Illie.” Jaehyun says from the opposite side of their dorm room. They do this every night, music playing quietly from a shared speaker, and unpacking their days. 

They’ve been rooming together for two years now and decided pretty early on it was useless to try having secrets between each other. This was mostly because Jaehyun liked to drink when to de-stress and constantly spilled his heart to Taeil even when he didn’t want to listen. At that point, Taeil was just leveling the playing field. 

“What am I supposed to say? It’s not like he’s actually confessed anything to me. Won’t I look like quite the jackass if I tell him I’m not interested and he tells me he has no idea what I’m talking about?” Taeil asks, smooshing his cheek into his pillow as he turns to look at Jaehyun. Taeil isn’t an insecure man and he knows, deep down, Johnny has a crush on him, but he still is selfish enough to not want to be embarrassed by having Johnny try to play it off.

“Taeil,” Jaehyun shoots him a look. Serious Jaehyun is not to be trifled with. “We all know that’s not going to happen. He’s an open book. He’ll probably look at you like a kicked puppy and avoid us all for a few weeks while he licks his wounds.” He sits up, reaches for the speaker and clicks it off. Apparently this is a Serious Conversation that can’t be bogged down by Carly Rae.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” Jaehyun continues. “You might not think you’re stringing him along, but the little inside jokes, sharing lunches, stealing his jacket… Taeil, it’s not like it’s a surprise he’s falling for you.” 

Taeil sighs. He hadn’t thought of it that way. He convinced himself they just had a unique friendship, easy and soft, and Johnny just falls in love with everyone he talks to for too long. He told himself it would be over within a couple weeks. That was months ago. 

“I know, Jae. It’s just… What if he doesn’t come back?” Taeil reaches for his blanket, anxiously kicked to the foot of the bed earlier in the night. He wraps himself up like it’s armor, preparing for the worst from Jaehyun. 

“That’s incredibly selfish of you. First of all, because you know it isn’t true. And second of all, because even if it was true, that doesn’t give you the right to hurt him like that.” 

Their dorm room does not seem outfitted to handle the weight of the tension that settles between them. Taeil turns onto his other shoulder, properly scolded. 

“I’ll tell him.” 

“When?” Jaehyun is unrelenting. 

“Soon.” 

\-- 

Track 3: What a Feeling - One Direction 

It is extremely disheartening when Taeil walks into Starbucks and sees Johnny waiting for him, a cup waiting in front of the empty seat. Taeil knows it’s a white chocolate mocha-- his favorite. 

“Hey Tae!” Johnny says brightly, exuding more frenetic energy than usual today. His leg is moving under the table and he’s halfway through peeling the cardboard on his cup apart. Not a great sign. 

“Hey Johnny.” Taeil says, slipping into his saved seat and immediately curling his hands around the cup that was waiting for him. He shoots Johnny a grateful smile, taking a sip and hoping the caffeine doesn’t make him too nervous for what’s to come. “Doing okay today?” 

“Yeah!” His lips naturally curl up, which means on a normal day Johnny looks somewhere on the key of mischievous. The smile he offers Taeil today is somewhat lopsided, out of tune as Johnny’s teeth seem to be digging into his lower lip. Nervous? The great John Suh? 

Suddenly Taeil thinks maybe he shouldn’t have put this off for so long. He preps himself to get started, but Johnny’s quicker. Already caffeinated or spurred on by something else. 

“I made you something!” He blurts, hands flying from the coffee cup and into the vast front pocket of his university sweatshirt. “I was working on a project in literature and it got kind of boring… Professor wanted us to make a playlist to go with the readings we were doing.” He fidgets inside his pockets. 

“Anyways, I wasn’t super interested in it, but it got me back into my music library and well..” He trails off, then reaches across the table, sliding a small box directly in front of Taeil. “Don’t… open it right now. But, yeah, that’s for you.” Another jagged little grin. “I gotta get to class. Have a good rest of your day.” Johnny stands after that, brushes past Taeil and out the door faster than Taeil can even process. 

All that’s left behind as proof Johnny was even there is a shred of what must have been his coffee receipt and the box, staring ominously up at Taeil.

\-- 

Track 4: To Make You Feel My Love - Adele 

“You know what that is, don’t you?” Jaehyun doesn’t withhold his judgemental look. Taeil is frowning down at the contents. He followed instructions and didn’t open the box until he got back to the dorm, until him and Jaehyun were sharing secrets. 

“I’m older than you. Of course I know what a cassette tape is.” Taeil scoffs. Jaehyun barks a laugh.

“That’s not what I meant.” He takes the cassette from Taeil’s hand and looks at the tracklist that was painstakingly penned on in Johnny’s neatest handwriting. “This is the confession, Taeil. You missed your chance to do this the easy way.” 

When Jaehyun hands the cassette back it feels ten pounds heavier. 

\-- 

Track 5: I Knew I Love - Jeon Mi Do

Some very awful part of Taeil’s brain managed to convince him that he could avoid Johnny for the rest of the semester and then withdraw from this university and move to another country. 

That plan worked for exactly seventeen hours and twenty-six minutes. 

Johnny is saving a seat for Taeil in their literature class. There’s a white chocolate mocha on the desk. Johnny’s face is painted in hues of hope and desire. 

Taeil sits on the other side of the classroom. 

It is the longest ninety minutes of his life. The professor is completely oblivious to the blood shed right before his eyes. Taeil tries his best not to look, but Johnny’s noticeably slumped in his seat, the white chocolate mocha must have gone cold by now. They’re talking about dystopian novels and Taeil wishes they had a distraction like government robots to get rid of the heavy feeling in his chest. 

Class ends after an eternity and Taeil can’t decide if he’s thankful for it or not. On the one hand, it means things will be over soon, but on the other hand… It means things will be over soon. 

Class is dismissed and Johnny seems eager to twist the knife. He comes right over to where Taeil is packing his back, he’s not smiling.

“Saved you a seat.” He says it in a tone of voice Taeil only heard last time they watched Marley and Me together. 

“Yeah, sorry, I… didn’t see you.” What a lame excuse. They’ve sat together in this class every week for three months. Taeil stands, slings his bag over his shoulder, and tries his hardest to will time to move forward, past this wreckage. 

Time seems to stubbornly stay still, instead. Johnny hovers at Taeil’s side. 

“Did you…” He trails off, hope coloring his voice in the slightest pitch. 

“I don’t have a cassette player, Johnny.” Taeil says, softly like that will lessen the blow. They’re out in the hallway now, headed for the door. Taeil wants to be outside so badly, the hallways is too close quarters and he feels trapped. 

“Oh!” Johnny sounds brighter, that same fevered way about him bleeding through from the day before. “I can send you the Spotify link.” He pulls his phone out and starts typing away like a man that has found the cure to all the world’s problems. 

This would be easier if Johnny were a worse person. 

“No, I… I don’t have Spotify.” Taeil tries again, wishes Johnny would just take the hint. 

“Apple Music? I can set it up there real quick.” The rise and fall is quick there, like maybe Johnny is finally picking things up. Taeil just shakes his head.

“Johnny, you’re really sweet.” He hates the way his words sound like the ending scene of a bad soap opera. “I just thought… We were friends.” 

Taeil wishes he could take it back the minute he says the words. Wishes he could go back in time to the first day he met Johnny, convince himself then and there that this man was the love of his life. Johnny is so sweet, so gentle, so warm. He is everything someone could want. Taeil just… isn’t someone. 

The way Johnny’s face breaks, just for a fraction of a second, then resettles is the most jarring of all. Taeil hates every second of this. At least they’ve managed to get outside. 

“Yeah, I mean, of course we’re friends. Don’t you make your friends playlists?” Johnny asks, which might be a convincing argument if he could manage to meet Taeil’s eyes. It’s strange to see him like this, usually he’s the most confident of the group. “Maybe Jae has a player.” He says, like he’s still just trying to get Taeil to enjoy the gift. 

They both know that’s not it. They both know that just the track titles alone were enough of a message. And here’s Taeil saying he doesn’t want to hear it. 

“Hey, listen, I’ve gotta go. I signed up for debate club.” Johnny says after a pause, shouldering his backpack and leaving Taeil behind without another work or a backwards glance. 

Their university doesn’t have a debate club.

\-- 

Later on that night Taeil is working on a paper. He’s got Spotify up. Of course he has spotify. He and Johnny follow each other. 

He can see Johnny is active in the upper right corner of the screen.

Taeil clicks on the track that Johnny’s playing and hopes that eventually things will get back to normal. 

Don’t Watch Me Cry by Jorja Smith plays through his speakers. He’s happy Jaehyun is out for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 7 of #31resonance 
> 
> I'm so sorry to Taeil. Mostly wanted to challenge myself to writing from a perspective that isn't Johnny's.... and also to write someone not being in love with Johnny. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! 
> 
> You can find me on twt @/suhjpeg


End file.
